It wasn’t until the last year that I feel like I know what I’m doing with writing, despite having been tinkering with fiction for over 13 years. And the things that made the biggest difference in my writing weren’t rules. It wasn’t some magical technique that somehow snapped me into focus after 12 years of […]

If you’re wondering why your writing’s flat, you probably didn’t arrive at the word “flat” yourself. To you, it just feels off. Like it’s missing something. Like it’s almost where you want it to be. Like it’s just not landing. Like it’s writing pretending to be writing. And then the interwebs coined the term “flat” […]

Once running rampant, now rarely seen outside captivity, the tinkerer is a species teetering on the edge of decimation. Though they used to be found in abundance, their presence has been unknowingly diminished by that of elders claiming the species to be more invasive than functional. Their primary complaints included that of clangs coming from […]

There’s a lie a lot of writing advice teaches that if you “show, don’t tell,” then the emotion will come through in your writing. But emotion in writing isn’t something the reader can just witness. It’s something they have to move through. And that’s the biggest problem with most writers’ ability to write feelings. I’m […]